Morphed videos placing her face and voice on another woman’s body breached her dignity, the Bombay High Court has found, granting ad-interim protection to Radhe Maa’s personality rights and ordering the flagged content off the internet.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, protected the personality and publicity rights of spiritual leader Sukhvinder Kaur, known as Radhe Maa, and directed Google, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Telecommunications to ensure that the objectionable content she flagged is removed from the internet [Sukhvinder Kaur alias Radhe Maa v. Google LLC & Ors.].
Justice Madhav Jamdar granted ad-interim relief in an interim application filed in her suit.
The suit
Appearing for Radhe Maa, Senior Advocate Venkatesh Dhond placed on record a list of infringing URLs containing obscene and sexually explicit material. He submitted that the content, besides being obscene, defamatory and derogatory, falsely depicts her and causes grave damage to her dignity and reputation as a spiritual leader. He said she has a distinct public persona, usually seen in red attire with a trishul and a red tilak.
The Court noted that she has been a follower of Shri Mahanta Ramdeen Das for over three decades and has a considerable number of devotees in India and abroad.
What the Court said
Justice Jamdar found that the material on record, including content created by superimposing her face and using her voice on another woman’s body, violated her personality, moral and publicity rights.
“Perusal of the material on record clearly shows that her personality rights, moral rights and publicity rights are violated by the said content.”
The Court said her personality and publicity rights draw protection from Article 19(1)(a) and from the right to privacy and the right to life, that her right to live with dignity had been breached and her moral rights prejudiced, and that a strong case had been made for ad-interim relief as prayed.
The directions
Google, MeitY and the Department of Telecommunications have been directed to ensure that all the objectionable content flagged by Radhe Maa is taken down. The relief is interim, and the suit will proceed to be decided on merits.
Why the order matters
Personality rights litigation has so far been led largely by film stars and sportspersons, mostly before the Delhi High Court. This order extends the same protection to a religious figure whose public identity rests on a recognisable persona, and treats sexually explicit morphing as an attack on dignity as much as a misuse of identity.
By directing not only Google but also MeitY and the Department of Telecommunications, the Court has used the government’s blocking machinery to make the takedown effective across platforms, an approach increasingly common in deepfake cases where content spreads faster than individual notices can follow.
Case Title: Sukhvinder Kaur alias Radhe Maa v. Google LLC & Ors. [Interim Application No. 36255 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Madhav Jamdar, Bombay High Court
Date of Order: November 3, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocate Venkatesh Dhond for the plaintiff